Fall 2009 Colloquia

The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture  will present the following speakers in our ongoing coffee colloquium series:

Wednesday, September 2, 2009- Coffee Colloquium: 11:00 AM in AH 105 ( History seminar room), Professor Mary Cameron (Anthropology) will discuss:

"Nature and Health in the Himalayas"

    Ayurveda is one of the most popular forms of healthcare in Nepal for it provides a theory of health and illness that is supported by people's extensive knowledge of medicinal plants. Indeed, Ayurvedic doctors and rural farmers share a caring devotion for medicinal plants (called jadibuti, 'healing entities from roots') corresponding to what environmental anthropologist Kay Milton has identified as a human-environment orientation of "loving nature" that is common to communities directly dependent on natural resources. Furthermore, Ayurveda explicitly acknowledges that plants contribute to the growth and well-being of humans within an ethos (shared, I argue, by lay  Nepalis) that might be interpreted to claim that humans and plants are  different forms of the same phenomenon. In contrast, environmentalists  working to preserve Himalayan biodiversity, often in unique partnership  with Ayurvedic physicians, approach human-nature relationships quite  differently. They typically see humans as impediments to sustainable  plant conservation. This talk explores how human-environment  orientations are complementary, conflictual, and mutually influential  in responding to modernizing forces and to achieving the development  goals of health care improvement and biodiversity conservation.

Mary Cameron, an  Associate Professor of Anthropology, FAU and the author of On the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal. University of Illinois Press

Wednesday, October 28, 2009- Coffee Colloquium: 11:00 AM in AH 105 ( History seminar room),  Professor Nora Erro-Peralta (Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature) will present:

"Reconstructing the Past Through Women's Eyes: the New Latin American Historical Novel"

    Over the course of the last twenty-five years, a large number of Latin American historical novels have been written and published   in Mexico, the Caribbean,  Central and South America.  This talk  will explore how certain Latin American women writers have created a unique and challenging portrayal of women who have been marginalized and even omitted from historical accounts and will  reconsider the role of women in writing national history and forming national identity.

     Specifically, I will focus on two Latin American novelists: Alicia Yánez Cossío from Ecuador and Isabel Allende from Chile. Both have recently published works that recreate the lives of women during the Spanish conquest and early colonization of the Americas (1500-1600).  In her latest novel, Memorias de la Pivihuarmi Cuxirimay Ocllo Yánez Cossío tells the history of the Incas through the eyes of Cuxirimay Ocllo, Emperor Atahualpa’s pirihuarmi, who narrates her own life from her birth to the fall of the Empire and then her subsequent life under Spanish rule; and Isabel  Allende in her 2006 novel entitled Inés del alma mía  recounts the story of the first woman to arrive in Chile  with the conquistadors in the 1500s. Inés Suárez, a real historical figure who came to Chile with Pedro de Valdivia narrates her life in her own words, emphasizing the role she played in the conquest of the new territory for Spain and the founding of the first Spanish settlement in Santiago in 1540. Both novels subvert the official history by replacing its patriarchal male discourse with a rebellious feminine discourse.

Nora Erro-Peralta, is a Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature, FAU  and the co-editor of Beyond the Border: A New Age in Latin American Women's Fiction. University of Florida Press

Tuesday, November 3, 2009-Coffee Colloquium: 11:00 AM in AH 105 ( History seminar room), Professor Eric Freedman (Communication) will discuss:

Spring 2009 Colloquia

Wednesday, January 21, 2009- Coffee Colloquium: 12:00 PM  in  AH 105 ( History seminar room), Professor Carol Gould ( Philosophy) will present:

"Aristotle's Ethical Taxonomy and the Histrionic Personality Disorder"

    This talk focuses on the Histrionic Personality Disorder, a diagnosis from the DSM IV, which, I argue, raises some intriguing philosophical problems.
    The disorder has been relatively ignored by philosophers, researchers, and non-psychoanalytic therapists, perhaps because HPD is often conflated with the more vague  notion of hysteria.  (HPD is not unrelated to hysteria in that both are defined in terms of externalizing emotion.)  HPD raises questions about the precarious line between the pathological and the moral as well as some concerns about the biases embedded in diagnostic categories.
    HPD is classified as a Cluster B personality disorder along with the widely discussed Anti-Social, Narcissistic, and Borderline Personality Disorders. These characters are perennially fascinating, as we see in the concerns of theoretical  and literary writers since Plato and those reflected in popular culture.  Philosopher L. Charland argues in a recent article that Cluster B disorders are not really psychological disorders but instead moral disorders, and, as such, require moral therapy not psychotherapy.  He scarcely discusses the Histrionic, adding a few remarks only at the end of his discussion.  Similarly, most empirical studies of Cluster Bs focus less on HPD than the other three.  The Histrionic, I believe, does not belong with Cluster Bs.
    My project is  to  show that the Histrionic is not a moral disorder (and possibly not a personality disorder) by using Aristotle's ethical theory.  In doing so, I propose some ideas about what a moral disorder is, how psychological disorders are culturally 'constructed,' and whether the DSM IV diagnostic categories articulate real distinctions.

Dr. Gould, professor of Philosophy at FAU,  is the author of numerous journal articles. Most recently, " Dogen and Plato on Enlightenment" appeared in the  Japan Studies Review and "Glamour as an Aesthetic Property of Persons" was published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

Monday, February 9, 2009- Coffee Colloquium: 12:00 PM  in  AH 105 ( History seminar room), Professor Jeffrey Morton ( International Law and Politics) will discuss:

"The Iraq War: A Failure of Democracy"

Over the course of the past century, the American public has experienced periods of intense political debate over foreign policy as well as periods of foreign policy consensus.  The implication of periods of consensus is a failure to fully and meaningfully debate alternative foreign policy paths.  This presentation, based upon a published journal article, examines the causes and policy implications of periods of public consensus over foreign policy.  In so doing, it offers an explanation for America's two greatest foreign policy errors, the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War.

Dr. Morton, Professor of International Law and Politics at FAU, is the author of  The International Law Commission of the United Nations and the senior editor of Reflections on the Balkan Wars: Ten Years After the Break-up of Yugoslavia.

Wednesday, March, 18 2009  Coffee Colloquium: 12:00 PM in  AH 105 ( History seminar room),  Michael Singer  ( Art and Design) will present:

"The Public Realm and Academic Interface"

My professional work engages teams of participants from diverse fields and, at times, academics. I will discuss two projects related to this cross-disciplinary process. One is a current project I'm leading, the planning of the W.E.B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington, Massachusetts with the University of Massachusetts' Du Bois Center and the Friends of Du Bois, The other is a recently published white paper "Infrastructure and Community" for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Michael Singer held the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar Chair in the Arts from 2002-2005. He is currently the Special Consultant to the Dean of Arts and Humanities.
Michael's work crosses several disciplines. One of his key roles at the University is establishing opportunities for cross-college academic work within the institution and engaging academic interactions with his projects.

Wednesday, April, 8 2009 Coffee Colloquium: 12:00 PM in  AH 105 ( History seminar room), Dr. Graciella Cruz-Taura will present:

"Ransoming Cuban history between poetry and archives"

    This presentation focuses on the history behind the 1608 poem "Espejo de paciencia" [Mirror of patience] generally considered the first poem written in colonial Cuba and attributed to a scribe/notary public from the Canary Islands by the name of Silvestre de Balboa. Written in Renaissance epic style, the poem narrates, in 152 stanzas, the kidnapping of Bishop Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano by French pirates in 1604 and the colonists' ploy to punish the marauders. Only meriting a passing line by historians, Espejo de paciencia owes its place as Cuba's foundational text to literary critics and nationalist propagandists. Revealing documents she uncovered in Spanish and Mexican archives, Cruz-Taura rescues the poem from myth and offers a historian's nuanced reading of the intricate network that tied the lives of a bishop, a poet, smugglers, and Inquisition officials in the Spanish Caribbean at the turn of the seventeenth century.

Dr. Graciella Cruz-Taura is Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University. Rescate: "Espejo de paciencia" en la historia de Cuba will be published by Iberoamericana Editorial/Vervuert Verlag in 2009.  

Previous Colloquia

Wednesday, September 17, 2008-Coffee Colloquium:  Professor Oliver Buckton ( English)  presented "Robert Louis Stevenson, William Gladstone, and the Politics of Late-Victorian Masculinity" from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM  in FAU's room AH 105.  Dr. Buckton , professor of English at FAU, is the author of two books, Secret Selves: Confession and Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Autobiography and Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson: Travel, Narrative, and the Colonial Body.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008-Coffee Colloquium:  Professor Michael Horswell  (Languages and Linguistics) spoke about "Re-writing Imperial Subjects of Treason: Amazons and Cañaris in Spanish Transatlantic Literature" from 11:00 AM- 12:00 PM  in FAU's room AH 105. Dr. Horswell, an associate professor of Latin American literature and Spanish at Florida Atlantic University, is the author of Decolonizing the Sodomite: Queer Tropes of Sexuality in Colonial Andean Culture.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008-Coffee Colloquium: Professor Benno Lowe  ( History) discussed: "Commonwealth and Reformation: Protestantism and the Politics of Religious Change in the Gloucester Vale (1350-1560)" from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM  in FAU's room AH 105. Dr. Lowe, associate professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, is the Author of  Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas.

Thursday, April 17, 2008 - Coffee Colloquium: Dr. Susan Love Brown spoke about American individualist anarchism from 2-3:30 PM in FAU's room AH 105. Brown, associate professor of anthropology and acting director of comparative studies at FAU, is the editor of Intentional Community: An Anthropological Perspective and the co-author of Meeting Anthropology Phase to Phase. She has published on topics varying from Ayn Rand and Anarcho-Capitalism to ethnography in the Bahamas and a yoga community called Ananda Village.

Monday, March 17, 2008 - Coffee Colloquium: From 2 - 3:30 PM in FAU's room AH 105, Frederick E. Greenspahn, Gimelstob Eminent Scholar in Judaic Studies, discussed "Jewish Theologies of Scripture." Greenspahn suggests, "It is common in the study of religion for unfamiliar traditions to be treated as structurally similar to those that are familiar. That fallacy is responsible for the assumption that the Bible plays the same role in Judaism as in (Protestant) Christianity. A survey of Jewish thought on the matter reveals three broad understandings of the Bible's role, some of which are quite distinct from what is commonly assumed." Dr. Greenspahn is Director of the Jewish Studies Program at FAU.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Coffee Colloquium: At 2:30 PM, poet, biographer, and literary critic, Mark Scroggins, discussed his new book, The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky. For more information about FAU Associate Professor of English Mark Scroggins, click here. For more information about the event, contact the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. To learn more about The Poem of a Life, click here. This event took place in FAU's room AH105.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - Coffee Colloquium: From 4:00 - 5:00 PM in AH 108, Lester Embree, William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar, spoke about the "Phenomenology of Nursing." For more information about the event, contact the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. For more information about Professor of Philosophy Lester Embree, click here or here.

Tuesday, October 23 - Coffee Colloquium: At 4:30 PM in AH 108, National Book Award finalist Susan Mitchell discussed the "Poetic Process as Menage ? Trois." For more information about poet and professor Susan Mitchell, click here. For more information about the event, contact the Center.

March 12, 2 PM Coffee Colloquium, History Seminar Room, Ken Holloway, Assistant Professor of History and Levenson Professor of Asian Studies discussed �Opposing Views on Chinese Government�

April 9, 2007 - Coffee Colloquium : "Food and Self" presented by Wen-ying Xu
Xu writes: "In this short presentation, I will argue that food, as the most significant medium of the traffic between the inside and outside of our bodies, organizes, signifies, and legitimates our sense of self in distinction from others who practice different foodways. Food not only nourishes but also signifies. Cuisine, the process of transforming raw materials into safe, nourishing, and pleasing dishes, is central to our subjectivity, because this transformation operates in 'the register of the imagination' more than of the material. I will also briefly demonstrate how to read food in literature."